The day after our Oxburgh Hall trip, we drove up to Castle Rising Castle. I know it sounds repetitive, but the town is called Castle Rising, so the castle in the town is Castle Rising Castle.

Castle Rising Castle is a 12th century castle built around 1140 by William d’Albini, who married Henry I’s widow. The castle isn’t fully intact (the main roof is gone), but the walls are fully intact, and you can still walk through the different floors.

We paid for the audio tour, since most of the signs didn’t have a lot of detail, we were told. The audio tour was largely told from the point of view of Queen Isabella, mother of Edward III, who came here after being accused of having a hand in the murder of her husband, Edward II. She wasn’t technically under house arrest, but being here also meant she was too far from the court to have any real influence.

One thing Castle Rising Castle is particularly known for is the large earthworks surrounding the keep. The great earthworks which form the whole site and extent of the castle, cover an area of between 12 and 13 acres and comprise a main central enclose, or inner bailey, and two lesser outworks respectively to east and west. The central enclosure, in shape something between a circle and an oval, is far and away the strongest, with it banks, even now after the cumulative and combined effects of erosion and in-filling, rising to a height of some 18 meters.

I’m always impressed with the detail on the stonework, and how it can stand the test of time.

The staircase upon entering was also impressive. The archways are still intact, and you can still see the details carved into the stone.

We had to walk through a little doorway to get to the staircase for the inside of the castle. I’m always amused by how much shorter they were centuries ago. It makes me feel humungous though!

The audio tour was really nice to have, because otherwise you could probably walk through the castle in half the time. It was also interesting to hear what Queen Isabella’s perspective may have been. The castle is in a very pretty area, but it’s very quiet and somewhat remote as well. Despite the fact that she had frequent visitors, it probably was pretty quiet the rest of the time.

After the castle, we drove to Castle Acre, which isn’t too far away. We wanted to see the priory there, but we didn’t have enough time before they closed for the day. So we went to a tearoom for tea and sandwiches. As usual, it was all delicious. 🙂 Andrew also got some loose tea leaves and a tea strainer to make tea at home. Then we walked to the old Bailey Gate in Castle Acre, which led us to the pedestrian trail to get to Castle Acre Castle.

There really isn’t much left of Castle Acre Castle:

It was still nice to walk around, it it seems like families generally come here to do just that. We saw a few people with their dogs, and those pups just loved running in the grass unleashed! 🙂 We walked around to read all the different signs, and it’s fun to imagine what it might have looked like here centuries ago. It’s just sad when these places fall into ruin.

 

Well, I complained about the weather being too warm those first few days of October, and by the 8th, I was in jeans and a cardigan again. Proper England weather. 🙂

It was kind of an overcast day, but we wanted to get out and do something. Lucky for us, Oxburgh Hall is less than half an hour from our house. This manor house was built by the Bedingfeld family in the late 1400s. The 10th generation of the family still resides there, but only in a part of the house. The rest of it is owned by the National Trust and is open for tours.

Before heading into the house itself, we walked through the Kitchen Garden, which has mostly vegetables and herbs, but it also had some flowers still blooming.

Next we headed up to the house. Despite the fact that it does have a moat, this was never a fortress; it was always a family home. Oxburgh is a great example of a late medieval, inward-facing great house. It also has an imposing fortified gatehouse that one must cross a bridge to enter. And all just for show. 🙂

I didn’t get any pictures inside, because photography was not allowed. Darn it. 😦 But that just means that if you come to visit, we can bring you here so you can see the inside for yourself! 🙂 Besides being a really beautiful home, one of the things Oxburgh Hall is known for is its priest’s hole. Due to the Bedingfelds being Catholic, even when Catholics were persecuted in England, a Catholic priest may have had to hide within the small disguised room in the event of a raid. The room is reached via a trapdoor, which when closed blends in with the tiled floor. Unlike many similar priest holes, the one at Oxburgh is open to visitors.

Oxburgh Hall is also known for a few important guests: King Henry VII and Mary, Queen of Scots. There is still a room known as the Kings Room, named this in 1487 after King Henry VII stayed with the Bedingfelds. Elizabeth I also visited in 1578, before she was queen. Mary, Queen of Scots, stayed in Oxburgh Hall during the time when she was under house arrest. Her needlepoint hangings are still in the house today.

I DID take some pictures when we made it up to the roof. It was drizzling, but it didn’t bother me. One of the British ladies I passed apologized for the weather, and she probably thought I was a nut when I said I didn’t mind it at all!

After the tour of the house, we stopped at the tearoom for tea and scones. But on the way to our table, we passed the dessert table. That was dangerous… we both ended up getting dessert too!

I am not a “cake” person, and this cake was phenomenal! Andrew got something chocolatey, but I was way too in love with my own dessert to pay any attention to his!

While we were eating, I browsed through the brochures I had snagged at the end of the tour. Turns out I had grabbed the one for the kids too: it showed a map of the Sculpture Trail. So that’s what we did next. Since we were closest to the last sculpture, we did it in reverse. My favorite was the first one (which was the last one we came to, going in reverse):

Okay, this one isn’t particularly cute, but hedgehogs (or ‘hedgies’ as I continue to call them) seem to be big in England. And they are very cute in stores! Not real ones, the cute cartoony ones. Anyway, I will not make you go through the whole Sculpture Tour through pictures.

But while on the tour, we also saw some of the woods:

And we saw the small church on the property:

We walked part of the trails, but I was only wearing flats, and with the drizzle, it was a little too wet to be walking around. By the time we got to the car, the bottom 2 inches of my jeans were soaked. But we really want to go back and do some more walking around there. I was also impressed with the “kid-friendly” things on the trails. We saw a couple out with their two little boys, and they were having a great time!

Wow, just noticed the dad wasn’t even wearing full shoes! Guess he likes drizzly weather as much as I do! 🙂